Randall Children's Hospital gets a stylish new home in Portland

Nurses and doctors will move their young patients into the new building Feb. 26. But the public will have a chance to tour the hospital at a grand opening celebration this Saturday.

The cost of building and equipping the children's hospital totaled $226 million, says David Eager, chief financial officer for Legacy Health. The nonprofit hospital company raised $150 million for the project by selling bonds in 2009 that must be repaid over 20 years. The Robert D. and Marcia H. Randall Charitable Trust donated $10 million last September. The trust targets donations to the communities where its founders' real estate investment firm, The Randall Group Inc., operates throughout the west. Other donors have committed $25 million toward a goal of $30 million. Legacy expects to use its cash reserves to cover the balance of costs.

The investment is not without risk. Many children's hospitals receive half or more of their payments from Medicaid, the state and federal entitlement program that covers medical costs for low-income children and pregnant women. Oregon and other states have recently cut Medicaid payments by hundreds of millions of dollars and are under pressure to cut even more. At the same time, the federal Affordable Care Act is likely to shift more money toward primary care and away from inpatient medical centers.

Randall Children’s Hospital grand opening celebration

When: Saturday, Feb. 11, from noon to 6 p.m.

Where: 2801 N. Gantenbein Ave.

What: Tours of the new building, prize drawings for family trips, scavenger hunt, bike and snowboard helmet sale and fittings, live performances by Mo Phillips, The Alphabeticians, Sould Out, Grupo Condor and The Toy Trains, and more family activities.

"What's being proposed is going to have a dramatic impact on us," Eager says. "We know that we need to re-think how we are doing things." But he says Randall, being part of a diversified medical center, is better prepared for health reform than stand-alone children's hospitals.

Legacy's financial challenges include a relatively heavy debt load and increasing competition, Moody's Investors Service noted in a bond rating in March. PeaceHealth, a nonprofit corporation with hospitals from Oregon to Alaska, acquired Vancouver's Southwest Washington Medical Center, adding another "larger system to the already competitive Portland market," Moody's reported.

Back in the early 1990s, Legacy and OHSU considered merging pediatric inpatient services as a way to control spending and maximize efficiency. At the time, the Multnomah County Medical Society's board of trustees voted to support the idea of a single children's hospital in Portland. That vision ended in 1994, when OHSU plunged ahead with plans to build a new Doernbecher on its own campus. The $73 million, 250,000-square-foot, 128-bed hospital opened in 1998.

Burchell, the Legacy vice president, says population growth and patient needs have created enough demand to keep both hospitals busy. "Oregon's two children's hospitals are often at or near capacity." Legacy's new building has 165 inpatient beds, up from 155 in the old space. The new pediatric emergency room has 22 exam rooms, up from eight. The vacated space will be remodeled for adult patients.

Oregon's certificate of need law gives the state the power to stop hospital construction if it is deemed excessive. The new children's hospital building was exempt from review because it is largely replacing existing hospital beds -- adding less than 10 percent new capacity.

Comfort and convenience for patients and their loved ones are taking center stage, in keeping with research on the effects of the environment on healing, such as studies showing that patients with views of nature and sunlight recover sooner, suffer fewer complications and require less pain medication. Some research suggests that infection risk is lower when patients are given private rooms rather than sharing quarters with others. Patients also sleep better in private rooms, communicate better with their caregivers and gain better support from visiting family.

Designers of the new Randall Children's Hospital put a particular emphasis on giving patients respite from noise. Staff will wear wireless devices that eliminate the need for loud, overhead paging. Carpeted hallways and sliding doors muffle sound. Room supply closets are accessible from hallways so patients need not be disturbed.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Randall Children's Hospital is its generous provision of common areas designed to feel more like living rooms than hospital rooms. The warm woodwork, soft carpets, soothing artwork and floor-ceiling windows strive to make it easy to feel less hospital bound.